The pivotal role of advisors in business success

How streamlining your advisory workflow can help nurture client relationships

‘Two-thirds of small business survive 2 years in business, half of all businesses will survive 5 years, and only one-third will survive 10 years’. We catch up with Andrew Jordon to hear how Fathom is playing a role in changing this statistic.

XU: What is the motivation behind Fathom?

AJ: A common reason for failure is poor decision making and planning. Fathom seeks to support advisors so they can confidently provide business owners with the insights and recommendations they need for better decision making. Simply put, our mission is to help businesses thrive, not just survive.

XU: Accountants have been offering advisory services for years now. Why would they need a product like Fathom?

AJ: We recognise that accountants are the ones who are best placed to provide financial direction to their clients. Fathom provides a beautiful visual interface to help business owners really understand the story behind their numbers. But it goes deeper than that. Fast-paced advisory teams also need a product that will automate workflows, streamline processes and provide new efficiencies. Templates, scheduled reporting, customisation, white labelling and client collaboration all contribute to better advisory offerings.

XU: Andrew, you’ve joined the Fathom team within the last year. What are some of the great ‘aha’ moments when talking with accountants?

AJ: When it comes to online accounting, Xero is a really fantastic platform… but it isn’t designed to deliver deep performance insights to business owners. So we’ve developed a seamless integration with Xero, where Fathom automatically imports the accounting data and transforms it into accounting intelligence.

Accountants love being able to show clients how their business is performing, and then to dive into strategies to achieve the company’s aims. There’s this great ‘aha’ moment when accountants realise Fathom can facilitate profitable advisory work, and business owners realise accountants can provide these performance insights.

XU: We’ve been watching on as Fathom has really grown in the last few years. Where is the team based now?

AJ: Our headquarters is in Brisbane, Australia and we have a team of 5 in the United States. In 2018, we expanded into the UK and set up operations in Cambridge. It’s an exciting time to be part of the team!

XU: It seems like you’re constantly sending out new product updates. What are some of the recent highlights that Fathom has released?

AJ: One of my favourite recent releases is the flexible Chart of Accounts, which allows you to group accounts and customise your financial statements. We’ve also shipped some other cool features to improve the Fathom experience, including a dynamic new analysis platform and streamlined formula KPIs.

XU: Can you give us a hint at some new features that might be heading our way this year?

AJ: We have so much on the go, so I’ll try and keep this response to just a few key points! As always, we’re determined to empower accountants to serve their clients. So we’re working on further customising the financial statements within Fathom, and we’ll soon release a new cash flow statement, EBITDA profit and loss, and balance sheet layout to aid comparison between financial and management reports. We love great design, and we’re constantly improving our interface to provide the best user experience. Along with some really exciting new reporting features, we also have a couple of surprises up our sleeves!

XU: You’ve got some big names in the advisory space using your platform. What makes Fathom a favourite solution?

AJ: Fathom has been hugely popular with top accounting firms worldwide. I’ve found that it comes down to a few simple things… Ease of setup. Quality product. Affordable. Actionable insights. Benchmarking client performance. Firm differentiating visuals. Designed for the advisor.

XU: Fathom is at Accountex London (1st/2nd May) this year, where are you located and why should attendees come see you?

AJ: You’ll find us at stand 1131, near the Accounting in Business and Accountants in Practice Theatres. I’m more than happy to answer specific questions for your firm/finance team. We have some special offers available to those who come and have a chat during the event.

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About the author

Andrew Jordon

Director of Business Development (UK), Fathom Andrew Jordon is Fathom’s Director of UK Business Development. A qualified accountant in his own right, he likes the language of numbers but knows that numbers on their own are fairly uninteresting. When working as an accountant, he was frustrated with the volume of data the firm collected for tax purposes, which was never used to inform business strategy. Working in-house in finance, he saw how inefficient and ineffective the firm was at management and board reporting.

So, Andrew joined Fathom and spent six months in Australia, the US and the UK with accountants and business owners listening to their experiences to try and best understand the problem and shape the solution.